CenterPoint Energy’s green hydrogen facility becomes first to register, issue certificates with a tracking system
CenterPoint Energy’s green hydrogen facility in Minnesota achieved another national first last week when it became the first green hydrogen facility with a tracking system in North America for renewable thermal certificates (RTCs).
Already, the company became a model for being issued the first RTCs for green hydrogen in the U.S. when the facility launched earlier this year. RTCs represent the environmental attributes of renewable natural gas and other renewable thermal commodities like green hydrogen. Now, it’s tracking those RTCs through the M-RETS Renewable Thermal Tracking System.
“We are proud to collaborate with CenterPoint Energy on making green hydrogen RTCs available in the M-RETS Renewable Thermal tracking system,” Ben Gerber, M-RETS president and CEO, said. “With new incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act, green hydrogen-producing facilities will grow. This is an important step to establishing the market.”
CenterPoint intends to retire the RTCs generated from the facility for its customers. M-RETs will manage the platform for RTCs, validating the environmental attributes of renewable fuels and providing a digital, fully traceable certificate for each dekatherm produced by renewable thermal generators. This would allow buyers to trace and claim consumption from specific facilities throughout North America and get an exact accounting of the emissions attributed to their natural gas usage, increasing transparency.
“CenterPoint Energy is committed to evaluating innovative solutions that help reduce emissions to support a cleaner energy future,” Scott Doyle, executive vice president of utility operations for CenterPoint Energy, said. “With our green hydrogen pilot facility, we are exploring the potential of this zero-carbon energy resource to supplement the conventional natural gas delivered through our local distribution systems to benefit both our customers and the environment.”
The company’s green hydrogen facility can use renewable electricity and purified water to produce approximately 60 dekatherms of hydrogen in a day. That green hydrogen is then added to natural gas in a portion of CenterPoint’s local distribution pipeline system. The company views it as a key part of its carbon reduction goals.
